If there's one consistent piece of criticism that gets lobbed in Canonical's and Mark Shuttleworth's direction, it's that they do not contribute enough code - or anything else for that matter - to the Free software world. Mark Shuttleworth has apparently had enough, and has written a very, very lengthy blog post detailing how he feels about this criticism.

its true that canonical and Ubuntu have raised the profile of GNU/Linux farther than any other desktop oriented distro thus far.However, and this isnt a case of "NIH" , to get there they have had to sacrifice a lot of what the open source community considers an integral part of the communities unwritten laws and have had a tendancy to lean towards a more Redmondy way of doing things.That said the community is made up of those that choose to participate in it and with a constantly evolving and shifting membership base it nay be canonicals view that gains dominant.
Nevertheless the one criticism that has not been addressed by Mr Shuttleworth is , his contribution or perceived lack thereof to that selfsame community that sustains him.
to quote aristotle "He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god"